You know the beer. Now try E9’s wood-fired pizza, corn nuts and all

Nothing is better than cold beer and hot pizza, preferably demolished in view of fermenters and in wafting distance of a wood-fired oven.

At E9 Pizza and Beer Works, not only do you get excellent pints of Part A, but you also get perhaps the best example for miles of Part B.

The crust reaps its tangy flavor from a unique wild yeast strain E9 developed for its renowned barrel-aged beer program and more than 72 hours of fermentation, its leopard-spotting from a custom Forno Bravo oven tended every 30 minutes with applewood.

Toppings start at the intersection of a bright no-cook red sauce and grande mozzarella before picking up pepperoni cups, roasted mushrooms and shishito peppers, with a pit stop at lavender-infused Calabrian chili honey, merguez and crushed corn nuts.

The latter you’ll find on one of the brewery’s most popular 14-inch pizzas: the Upper White Trash with béchamel, mozzarella and romano, bacon and onions roasted in the wood-fired oven with E9’s Dick Amber ale. Corn nuts are sprinkled after the pie has spent all of 90 seconds in the 800- to 1,000-degree dome of bricks sitting atop a truck outside the taproom.

For X Group co-founder John Xitco (pronounced like it starts with a Z), that playfulness aligns with practicality.

Easy to execute, the unexpected addition of crunchy, salty corn kernels, he said, “creates a real high interest level without it being something like, ‘We make our own miso and ferment it for 400 days.’ We just crush corn nuts.”

(As background: In spring 2019, X Group moved its brewing operations from sister restaurant Engine House No. 9 off Sixth Avenue to a fresh facility in Tacoma’s historic brewing district, near downtown and the Tacoma Dome. Now in its 15th year, the group also owns The Pine Room venue and the venerable Asado Cucina Argentina.)

Each pizza has a little surprise, whether it’s “loads” of pepperoni cups on The Radiator, jalapeno gouda on La Margarita or mortadella on Morty’s Truffle Hustle.

“I wanted to make sure we had things that were interesting and different than other places out there,” said Xitco, who developed the core of recipes with his son in their home pizza oven. The dough formulation benefited from E9 head brewer’s wild yeast strain and the expertise of Noel Brohner of Slow Rise Pizza Co. in Oakland, Cali., and X Group pastry chef Julia Brown.

Once they solicited the “when can I have this again?” reactions from friends and X Group employees, they quietly unveiled their research last October.

Since then, word has trickled out, and I am here to tell you it’s official: E9’s pizza rules.

E9 BEER & PIZZA

At first, E9 the taproom offered build-your-own charcuterie boards, but guests wanted something “more substantial,” said Xitco.

With an Italian mother and a Croatian father, pizza has always been top of mind.

“It was something I thought our town could use,” he told The News Tribune this month. There was good pizza, he added somewhat cautiously, but who doesn’t want more good pizza?

“I wanted the dough to kind of tie into the brewery in some way,” he continued, “and the obvious way was us doing all the barrel-aged beers that we do and creating a lot of our own yeast strains.”

Working closely with the health department, E9 built an indoor-outdoor kitchen. Chef Erica Dunham, who restarted the pizza program in June following a stay-at-home-induced pause, manages the unique setup. Prep happens in a tiny galley inside the taproom; pizza magic happens outside under a corrugated metal structure, adjacent to a fenced-in patio with room right now for about 10 tables/barrels.

A pastry chef by training, Dunham joined X Group as The Pine Room’s executive sous chef but jumped at the chance to nurture E9’s pizza. A self-admitted Italiaphile, she lived in Europe for several years and learned the fermentation and brick-oven ropes at Serious Pie, a Tom Douglas restaurant in Seattle.

What makes E9’s pizza special? The oven, the dough, the wild yeast: “It really makes it very us,” she said.

Bulk-fermented for 72 hours, she and her small team shape the dough — created from a blend of Washington flours, including a touch of whole wheat — on the fourth day. The no-cook red sauce “doesn’t dull the flavor of the tomatoes,” a high-quality, whole peeled Italian varietal grown in California. The oven yields that leopard-spotting indicative of a blistering hot oven and a properly developed crust — an impressive feat with so many variables, from the exact temperature inside the dome to the air outside.

Taproom manager Todd McLaughlin, who first worked for X Group as a teenage busboy at the late restaurant Masa, added, “It takes longer to stretch the dough than to cook it.”

That’s why you should go to E9 to experience this pizza hot out of the oven — at least the first time, Xitco and McLaughlin agreed.

“You’re gonna get the most pleasure out of it right away,” said McLaughlin. “We want people to experience the brewery with a cold beer in hand.”

Though they will do their best to accommodate special requests, the menu is intentional, curated for optimal enjoyment. Dunham has created a vegan pie, for instance, featuring a coconut oil-based cheese and Beyond sausage. She also creates weekly specials with seasonal ingredients like heirloom tomatoes, squash blossoms or roasted corn.

Go to Fawcett and 25th and you’re bound to first smell the characteristic char of burning wood. Then you’ll see the smoke rising from the patio.

E9 PIZZA & BEER WORKS at E9 BREWING CO.

▪ 2506 Fawcett Ave., Tacoma, 253-383-7707, e9brewingco.com

▪ Pizza Hours: Wednesday-Thursday 3:30-9 p.m.; Friday 3:30-10 p.m.; Saturday 12:30-10 p.m.; Sunday 12:30-9 p.m. (taproom opens half-hour earlier)

▪ Details: wood-fired pizza and house beers; indoor and outdoor seating available; call for takeout but eat promptly

This story was originally published October 21, 2020 at 5:05 AM.